Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:55 pm Post subject: water
Guess I'll start by answering some of the questions Rachel put on mycsw.
Common vs Commodity: I think the difference between common and commodity definitely exists with resources. Common is open for everyone. It can be paid for, but there is some sort of fair system to ensure that everyone pays equally. On the other hand, a commodity is a privatized resource. People pay differently to get the same product, and there is competition for the resource.
Grey area for C vs C: I'd say yes, I'm pretty convinced, but not by Rawson. I think I convinced myself that this grey area for common vs commodity exists when I thought about water today. Water is public, but there is privatized water available. And I don't really know which is better. Because we have the choice, I think the area exists. Which also may be the complete wrong idea. The grey area might be NOT having the choice. It might be publicly owned water, so a common resource, but everyone is charged differently, which is a commodity idea. So I guess I'm not sure on this one. Stuck in the middle... in a grey area. (haha?)
Grey area implications: Already talked about this one a little, but yeah, grey area today (possibly) with water again. The more interesting stuff is what it means. I'd say its bad. Seems like either the poor people are going to get screwed and not get water, as Rawson talked about in Boston, or people are going to be taxed unfairly, which is bad for everyone. When water was just privatized, some people couldn't afford it. When it was made a common resource, some people couldn't get to the water. Combined, it seems like there would be a lot of poor people who wouldn't be able to find or afford water. Seems rough.
Cronan and Rawson: I'd say Rawson did pretty alright following Cronan's lessons. Cronon's idea of, "all human history has a natural context," seemed to be a major factor in Rawson's thinking. The ideas that Bostonians were scared of nature and advancing technology (bugs in the water) impacting thoughts and politics so much was really cool. Finding out that there are little bugs in our water freaked people out so much that it caused them to elect or not elect political officials, based on which would bring the bugs to Boston. Pretty cool. The whole temperance stuff seemed pretty interesting too. People used nature for their own ideas, exploiting it sort of. A lot of people didn't really care who got clean water and who didn't, they just cared about religion. Twisting nature that much to base ideas that had a huge part in our history is really awesome. It also makes a lot of sense, because one thing that everybody has in common is what is around them. It's the perfect (or at least a good) thing to use when influencing people.
Not sure if any of that made sense. Hope we can get some water privatization debates going.
I think that this reading was one of the most interesting readings so far in this class. In response to Rachel's questions on the page...
Rawson argues that water existed in a gray area between commons and commodity; are you convinced?
I would agree that the gray area existed in Boston, when the idea of implementing a public water system first came up, but from my own point of view, water is not a commodity, nor should it be placed in a "gray area". Clean water is necessary for humans to live. But in Boston during the 19th century, I can understand why this was a heated topic of debate, considering the division between classes, the influx of immigrants, and that (to my knowledge) this would be one of the first systems of its kind in the United States. But like I said earlier, for me this doesn't make it okay.
But this stuff didn't only happen in 19th century Boston- it continues today. I agree with Dylan, we should discuss privatization of water in class, because it wasn't only an issue then, it's an issue now. Especially in Yemen.
Are there resources in our world today that skirt that line? What are the implications of being a little bit of both?
Yes- resources that are not necessary to human survival (in the most literal sense) but economies depend on.
How might the story of water in the city be different from water in the country?
Cities have larger populations and are more industrial, so a water system would need to be able to provide water for a lot of people. Since cities are more industrial, water is at greater risk for pollution or contamination, so efforts would have to be made to ensure the water is coming from a clean source (or being purified) and staying clean.
The country has smaller populations and is more agricultural. Homes/buildings are also more spread out than they are in cities. Also, water may be used for watering plants/fields, so the season would influence how much water is being used.
When I read the first page of this, my first thought was ‘nooooo! Not more water!!’
(I read Cadillac Desert and watched Chinatown, both of which focused on water irrigation in southern California)
My thought on irrigating water to a different location is neutral. I suppose in capitalism, the idea is whoever has water earned it in the first place. Getting water to an arid location means it has to come from somewhere else, so as long as the ‘somewhere else’ still has their fair share of water, I guess it is okay. Or we could just not have cities in the middle of deserts.
I do agree that water exists in the gray area of commons and commodity, but I don’t think it SHOULD be that way. I do think the fact that now we have thriving civilizations in arid, desert like areas a bit strange, and frustrating. Why build a city like Las Vegas in the middle of a desert without water? Then for cities in such areas to make issues of not having enough water, I just want say “well yeah. You are living in a desert.” Not that those cities don’t deserve water, it just makes me wonder what people were thinking when they decided to build a huge city in an arid desert. So in the case of dry cities, water is much more of a commodity than in others.
As far as other products that exist in the gray area, I definitely feel computers do now. Just like donating food for the starving, there is also a campaign to donate computers to those who don’t have them (the particular ad I am referring to focused on children in Africa) then again; many charities have controversy over what to donate and to whom.
And finally, I agree with Michaela’s statement on the differences between water in the city vs. water in the country. Though I think the area sort of in between, the suburbs, has a different usage of whatever all together. I live in a suburb, and sometimes when I think about saving water, I wonder if all the situations in which we use water are really necessary. When my brother used to live with us, he would sometimes jokingly say “There are people dying of thirst in other countries, and we use water in our toilets” even though he wasn’t serious in saying that, I think he does have a point. Leaving the sprinkler on so the grass can be green, is it really so important to have a full green lawn? (Well, it is to my parents I guess)
When I was reading this I started to think about the United Nations Water debate we had last year. This was talking about mostly the same things: who can pay, who doesn’t have any water, who is in need now, who feels like being charitable. Well… just throwing that out there.
In regard to the grey area between commons and commodities, I do believe that it is grey. Even if you look at the streets now, water mains are still exploding. That’s because their private enough that the city doesn’t want to put in new ones, but their public enough that if they break the city will fix them. (The grey was also in the United Nations assembly.) also, I found it interesting that the private building owner wouldn’t pay to bring that water into their homes when the public had already brought it to their door step.
Water is unthinkable to not have (its hard for me to imagine), and it is just as absurd to divide up the air and give it to a couple guys. (193)
In regards to Rawson and Cronon, I believe that Rawson did not do badly by his old teacher. He said many times that water was a basic element and that this paper was about the water and where it came from and how to use it doesn’t go against that.
He also showed that never was their a dull spot where nothing happened.
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:20 pm Post subject: Re: water
mmkay. First off, d0p3 reading. I lost a little bit of steam on all the temperance stuff, but its cool.
First I want to kindly disagree with Dylan. Or, rather, put what dylan said up for debate.
dylanh wrote:
Seems like either the poor people are going to get screwed and not get water, as Rawson talked about in Boston, or people are going to be taxed unfairly, which is bad for everyone. .
I don't really think anyone would have been taxed unfairly. Essentially, correct me if I'm wrong, I think thats the system we have in place today.
I mean the idea that kept coming up in the reading of the need for water being manipulated to treat the rich unjustly drove me CRAZY. "These groups worked hard to portray the gorwing momentum for municipal water as an unjustifiable clamor of the poor against the rich" (pg.194)
This is the exact same struggle we're dealing with today… take education, for example. People who are rich enough to send their kids to PRIVATE school complain that they get taxed for PUBLIC school education… they say that if you're unhappy with the STATE OF PUBLIC education, you should just put your kids in PRIVATE.
anyone get what I'm playing at with the caps lock? Not all families can afford private school education, in the same way that depending on your geographic location (which often, in this case, depended on your class) you didn't even have access to "pure" and healthy private water.
Saying putting a tax on municipal water is unjust for the upperclass is similar, in my eyes, to saying putting taxes on public education is unjust.
but maybe thats an oversimplification.
This reading reminded me of what freaks me out everytime I get on an airplane. People get all sorts of privileges depending on the amount of money they're willing to pay all the time. But no example seems to be more unabashed in that pattern than airplanes.
You literally get separated into classes; first class or "Economy" class and are separated by a curtain. A CURTAIN!
Depending on how much you pay, you actually get segregated and treated better/worse.
I guess that makes sense, but such an obvious representation of it makes me so uncomfortable. The idea that cleanliness and having clean drinking water became a sign of class is horrifying to me- because clean water, like food and even education, are things that feel like they should be non-negotiable.
That sentiment, however, was always countered by the always helpful reminder that, "When this demand shall have been obtained, competition must cease, and we shall endeavor to contemplate the ruin of our property, as philosophically as possible." (194)
not the end of free enterprise!
…!!!!
honestly, the horrible pictures anti-municipal water people painted for what might happen never seemed that awful to me. do you remember the quote where they were like "if we give water to charity, we will have to give it to individuals. If we give water to a poor corporation, we would have to give it to a poor man!"
morally, that situation sounds right on.
Capitalistically, that situation is a night mare.
I hate to pull out the C word, but I think thats what this reading boils down to. Possession of nature in Capitalism is an anomaly, and our struggles over natural resources that continue today are only a testament to that.
Ugh, Olivia, I SUPPOSE you're a bit right.
also don't be freaked out by planes they're great.
Capitalism stuff? again, I suppose so. Olivia is the only one I know of that can get this so far, but it seems like what happened in our movie reading, and in The Grapes of Wrath. People tried to commercialize nature, in this case the midwestern planes, and then the land was ruined and the people were screwed. If we let one person keep their farm, everybody gets their farm. Morally, right on. Capitalistically, terrible, because no one can make a lot of money. (Except the individual farmers, which isn't good for capitalism!) (I think... not 100% sure on the concept of it...)
word, dylan. thats exactly what I was thinking.
Anyone who found that reading interesting should consider doing the grapes of wrath for their next paper.
you know, once you're ready to even consider writing another one of these papers. which may not be for a long time.
First I just want to talk about Ellie’s point. “I found it interesting that the private building owner wouldn’t pay to bring that water into their homes when the public had already brought it to their door step.” Although the government paid to install water pipes to private buildings and all the owner had to do was install some more pipes I think many of them did not care enough to install the pipes. From what I gathered many of the apartment buildings were inhabited by the working class and poor people so the owner of the building might not have though it was worth it too pay to have the pipes installed. Also the owner might not have thought he would get back the money he spent for installing the necessary pipes because the renters probably would not have been able to pay more than they were already paying.
I would also like to answer Rachel’s question: How might the story of water in the city be different from water in the country?
Water besides air is the most important thing to have in the world. I would say water is even more important than food because a person can survive longer with just water than with just food. With that said I think having water in the country is even more crucial than having water in the city. In the city people need it to live but in the country people not only need it to live but also many of them need it for their farms to grow crops. Like Mikaela said it definitely is harder to get clean water in the city and usually comes from farther than in the country so maybe depending on how far the water comes from the more expensive it is per gallon. But on the other hand that might get too expensive for some people. Maybe there should be a set amount of water that is enough to get by on that everyone gets and is set at a very low price and than it gets more expensive from there. What do people think?
In response to Gigi's question, i think that there should be a limit to the amount of water used per capita or per hosuehold. When you think about it, water is used superfluously in a variety of ways, from extravagant pools and jacuzzis to the entire bottled water industry, which makes its money off of the illusion that its water is the "cleanest" water around. I remember reading about the scarcity of clean water back in middle school. Something like 1/20,000 of the world's water is clean, and i'm sure there will be less and less of it as time goes by. Eventually water will become priceless, and there will be a mad scramble for the last vestiges of drinkable water. the only real solution is not only to make a limit on water, but to make a minimum too, so that when the time comes, those with the most money cannot simply buy up all the pure water that's left. can you imagine how awful that's going to be? The upper class of americans will be able to buy the water and then sell it to poorer americans at whatever price they wish!
So, I really liked this reading because it dealt with my FAVORITE political/social topic for discussion ever which is water rights/privatization of water. Like Ellie brought up, this is part of the reason we chose to discuss this in the UN assembly last year because its extremely pertinent to today. If you keep an eye out for headlines, you'll start to see it everywhere and becoming increasingly the "hot" topic in debates/news stories. ( i have a bunch of other stuff on this currently in the world today if anyone's interested or needs it for a future paper).
Anyways, I thought the reading did a pretty good job of laying out the basics of commodity/commons, especially when it comes to municipal control and the fight for scarce resources. The way I digested the reading (and i think we've gone over this already) was there were basically two sides--the ones who wanted private companies to own and control the water and the ones who wanted it to be a public entity, controlled by the people.
Something I think that Rawson left out and something I havent seen too much discussion about on the forum posts is that WATER IS NOT A PRIVILAGE FOR THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD IT, IT IS A FUNDAMENTAL RESOURCE. I dont think its quite the same to compare it to private/public school, healthcare or even oil because water is fundamentally something we need to exist (not that education, healthcare or oil isn't but at our core, humans cannot physically exist without water). I do think its similar to the comparisons that Olivia bunty drew in that it shouldnt be: "The quantity and quality of water available to a family reflected its position on the social and economic ladder."
what I thought was interesting though was even after Boston decided to allow the city to control the water, the richer people still got better water because they could pay for it, while the "public water" was still for the lower classes and most didnt even have access to it besides street hydrants. This shows a deep issue within the way the law was set up--if your gonna have something like water turned over to the public, you also need to eliminate the private sector too, otherwise this "gray area" will just keep on existing and water will never actually be a public entity. (look at whats happening with healthcare right now--similar situation, not so easy to solve.)
I'm curious as to what others think about this (the bolded part). Agree/disagree? Is water different from all other private/public debates in that its truly a fundamental resource or can it be bought and sold like land? Are land and water the same kind of resource?
I'll be honest, I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts SIGNIFICANTLY more than the reading itself..like Olivia Becker mentioned, once you start looking for that line of dialogue about water--its everywhere and I really felt like Rawson oversimplified the sides a little.
The thing that struck me the most however, was not this debate about common vs. commodity, nor about human vs. economic right, but more how WATER as an idea, as a thing, was treated.
As many have stated, water is something we are physically incapable of living without. This is fact. So why did doctors, priests, architects, temperance activists, etc need to romanticize it so thoroughly? the connections between morality, mental and physical health, holiness and water were to me, incredible, because it made so many metaphors over a very real, very necessary substance. I understand much of this marketing was just that---ways of promoting their cause, but on a cultural scale its still pretty extraordinary to think of how water was exalted to embody God (and, by proxy, the people who used it to biblically--proportioned worthiness.)
In a vacuum this understanding is interesting, but what truly amazes me is that WATER is the only natural substance---force we've addressed in our readings thus far that was put on such an incredible pedestal. This isn't to say its the best or most important but that every other natural commodity/common was exploited or utilized without much thought, so ingrained was our entitlement.
Rachel mentions the grass reading of New England and asks, How does the story of water compare with Donahue's story of grass, that essential resource in New England colonial farming?
the grass was just as crucial to the movement and production of society as these people knew it and regardless of acknowledgement it was just used. Eaten up. The societal RESPECT, whether implemented in any actual execution of utilization, for water, was unprecednted in the American history we have hitherto studied.
So for all this talk of gray area, in one way water is NOT one. Can we name any other natural resource that hasn't either been totally exploited without regard to the thing in and of itself as nature, or else held high above the heads of people and poetically lauded like water? theres no gray area there.
Last edited by rlevinson2011 on Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
In responding to Dylan’s request: if everyone could post a quote/their quote from class up here that'd be great to help with discussion and class tomorrow. Here is the quote I was starting to write on the board when the lock down drill started. “In the early nineteenth century, many Bostonians-especially poorer residents of the city-experienced their domestic supply of water as a common resource. Some used the pump in Dock Square, one of the few maintained by the city, while most others relied on private wells that had assumed a public character over time.” (185)
I have a question that might start or add to discussion tomorrow about this quote: Why do you believe that some people are so adamant about keeping the water privatized when many people it seems have had no problem in sharing their private wells so that overtime they have become sort of public? It seems like the sharing of private wells and them consequently turning into semi public have worked well. I just can not seem to understand why if the model of having basically public wells works for most people why people cannot just transition to having public water for everyone.
Olivia becker said: if your gonna have something like water turned over to the public, you also need to eliminate the private sector too, otherwise this "gray area" will just keep on existing and water will never actually be a public entity.
Agree/disagree?
I agree that if water is turned over to the public the private sector also needs to be eliminated in order to get rid of the grey area. Without completely getting rid of the private sector I think that the amount of water used will be impossible to control and might hike the price of public water. It is already starting but in the future there will be less and less clean water available and in order to use water as efficiently as possible the government should be the only one who “owns” water. In the future I believe that there needs to be a system in place saying how much water each family can have based on how many people are in the family and what water cannot be used for. For example watering a lawn to make it look nice and green is not necessary and considering the scarcity of clean water to me seems a waste. If there were to be private water companies than people could get around the rules that would be put in place. I also think private water companies waste a lot and cause a lot of pollution because they use so much plastic for the bottles and gas for transporting water from places like the Fijis even though the water around here is completely fine.
So why did doctors, priests, architects, temperance activists, etc need to romanticize it so thoroughly? the connections between morality, mental and physical health, holiness and water were to me, incredible, because it made so many metaphors over a very real, very necessary substance. I understand much of this marketing was just that---ways of promoting their cause, but on a cultural scale its still pretty extraordinary to think of how water was exalted to embody God (and, by proxy, the people who used it to biblically--proportioned worthiness.)
rachel poses a really good question- it is kind of crazy how romanticized such a common substance was.
but on the other hand, we've never had to think about water in the way these people did, much less the way a lot of the rest of the world has to think about water. it seems weird to romanticize something that was at their fingertips- until you remember it wasn't actually at their finger tips.
This, again, reminds me of the reading I just did for the dust bowl. No one realllly cared about the midwest or the really essential farming that took place there until all the land was going to crap. A trend in the environmental histories we've studied is the age-old idiom of "you don't know what you have until its gone." specifically with natural resources…
we don't know what we have until its gone, and then if we ever get it again, we forget what it was like without it.
I think Rawson did a pretty good job explaining the common vs. commodity and the grey areas between them. I agree with what Ellie said in that this reading reminded me of the debate we had last year about privatization of water and the different subtopics of that discussion, as Ellie stated, “who can pay, who doesn’t have any water, who is in need now, who feels like being charitable” Aspects of municipal water value, meaning relating to the town, vs. the country side’s view is an interesting topic that Rachel brought up on her prompt questions on MyCSW. I think a lot of the substopics Rawson talked about in his passage like the municipal values of water in Boston, would be a lot different for much more rural parts of Massachusetts. How, I’m not sure but different nonetheless (if some people could throw out some ideas).
Health was brought up a lot in the Rawson reading, specifically in 1834 when there was a “growing public dissatisfaction with the quality of the groundwater.” The passage continued to quote multiple Bostontoinas who defended the purity of their drinking water, often saying “we grew up drinking it, so I guess its fine.” Obviously, the water was the worst in poor areas. A great quote that I found shows the economic structure of residents based on their water supply. “The quantity and quality of water available to a family reflected its position on the social and economic ladder.” Boston then turned to then start privatizing water in large companies so that it would become cheaper and saver. There qwas a lot of doubt in these projects about how much savings would come of it and how much less costly water would be, especially for poor and blue-collar neighborhoods.
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